Why Does All the “Bad for You” Food Taste Good?
By Nicole Martin
March 28, 2017
I get asked this question A LOT, and it generally comes at me in two ways…
First, I’m asked, “Why does nutritional food taste so bad? “
And then, there’s the second way to ask it: “Why is food that’s so bad for you taste so good?”
My answer is pretty simple:
The Taste Bud Problem
Nutritious, plant-based food is absolutely delicious. And that Milky Way you’re wolfing down right now is only delicious because your taste buds have been conditioned to think it’s delicious.
Essentially, with a lot of help from big food companies spending billions of dollars each year to target you with ads that are scientifically engineered to hit your brain and emotions just so, you’ve cultivated tastebuds that crave sugar, fat, salt, and a ton of other nasty chemicals that make up processed food.
But that’s just the beginning, because as America has gotten more and more obese over the last two decades, our activity has gone down. And because of that lack of activity the only dopamine your brain releases is when you eat something containing all the addictive ingredients listed above. So your body comes to crave that dopamine release, and you eat more. And more.
I know all this because I used to be addicted to all that stuff as well. It took a medical event to break me out of the junk food cycle, but once I started to eat better and learn more, something surprising happened.
Kick the sugar habit for good. Watch how here.]
The Reset
I no longer had the cravings. And… my tastebuds reset.
It sounds crazy, I know, but it really is what happens when you get away from processed food. Away from cheese, and sugar, and all the “great tasting” food that’s so bad for you.
I see this happen with our Wellness Training Institute members as well… a few weeks off of the junk and suddenly a carrot tastes deliciously sweet. Take away all the food that’s been chemically engineered to make you crave it, and your body begins to build the right kind of relationship with food. It begins to crave foods that contain the nutrients you need. You begin to eat not just “because it tastes good”—which is an absurd reason to eat anything—but instead because you need the fuel.
Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste good.
Not at all. It’s delicious.
And… you can eat it while you enjoy a long, happy, fulfilling life. A life that’s free of addiction.
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That’s our aim here at the Wellness Training Institute. Health liberation. We aren’t superheroes. We don’t have any more willpower than the next person. But we’ve broken free from those addictions.
And now we spend our lives helping others do the same.
